


If you get there before I do

by Nightingalewritings



Series: The Alorr’ika Chronicles [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Slavery, F/M, Jango and Shmi accidentally start an underground railroad, Slavery, Tatooine (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture, alternate universe: clone rebellion, underground railroad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightingalewritings/pseuds/Nightingalewritings
Summary: A chance meeting between a slave and mandalorian is all that it takes to change the face off the future. A meeting that begins the greatest slave rebellion in the galaxy, in the most subtle of ways.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Boba Fett & Anakin Skywalker, Boba Fett & Jango Fett, Jango Fett/Shmi Skywalker
Series: The Alorr’ika Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652077
Comments: 16
Kudos: 378





	If you get there before I do

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shape-Changer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678835) by [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril). 



> Technically, this is before the littlest General in the timeline, but ehhh. I adore Shmi/Jango stories, and if they happen to have an Underground Railroad movement? Well that’s just even better. I don’t take a lot of Fialleril’s, world, mainly I use my own. But it is heavily inspired by their own Double Agent Vader stories.

**If you get there before I do**

_Far across the river_

_Can you hear freedom calling?_

_-Stand Up (Harriet)_

The two originally met on a Slaver’s Frigate. It begins as nothing more than him laying on a dingy mat next to her. The woman’s belly was round. Round with a child yet to be borne, a doomed hope in those dark days. They do not talk about the man that was not there, the father of her child. Instead, they whisper back and forth to each other of what is coming. Of the child that she carries and what their name will be. At night, he would hold her, arms protectively wrapped around her stomach. Soon enough, the comforts of two slaves turned to something more. Something deeper between them and they evolved to something together. They had become a family on this frigate of doom. Eking out hope in slivers that they could only find because they hadn’t given up hope in those days. _(His name was Jango and he was a Mandalorian.)_

He doesn’t know why he did it in those first days, only that he did. He protected her. And she kept whatever sparse rations they manage to squirrel away from the other hungry slaves. Soon enough looking back, he thought he might have once loved her in those days. Might have had a future in a world where they were not slaves destined to be ripped apart by separate masters. 

But soon enough the ship stopped at the next dock. Twenty strong men are taken off, sold as labor for the spice mines. He was one of them. And she thought she would never see him again. She knew what the spice mines meant- it was hard labor, deadly for those that worked the mine shafts. The slaves sold there weren’t expected to survive for months. It was a short death, but it was not an easy one. He was sold to new masters and she found that she missed everything about him. His warmth, his strong sturdy chest and arms that gently held her at night. She missed all of those things. But more often than not, she just missed him _(His name was Jango and he was a Mandalorian.)_ and she forgot.

***|~ Alorir’ika~|***

In the days after her son’s birth, she would gaze at the babe held in her arms and wish for him to see what she saw. She longed for him to see her boy’s blue eyes and be able to look at him with calmness as he held the child. She longed for things she should not desire for as she whispered forgotten words to the crying child. She would tell him tales of the man, stories that had been whispered between two people in forgotten nights as he held her and her child that she had carried. 

It is later, they were sold to Gardulla the Hutt and taken to Tatooine as slaves. She and her boy. She had stopped whispering words of the man, turning her hands and her mind to survival on this hot desolate hell of a planet. Those things had once been savored now lay forgotten and untouched. Buried under years of neglect and layers of sand.

As her hands twisted wires and moved parts in the vaporator, Shmi told herself to forget. So she did. She forgot all that didn’t help them survive the heat of the planet and the cruelty of their master. ( _His name was Jango and he had been a mandalorian_.)

Eventually Gardulla’s household leaked like a broken sieve, losing credits faster than they earned. The hutt eventually sold Shmi and her son to Jabba in order to pay off gambling debts that did not stop. Years went by and Shmi kept working. She forgot what it means to be free, locking those memories and dreams away in order for her and her boy’s survival.

Anakin does not. He doesn’t quite flourish like a desert plant, but he does not wither in the dry climate either. Instead, the young boy turns his face to the stars at night and listens to the Old Mother’s songs. He soaked up the words and their meanings and he _dreams._ He dreams of pilots and ships and men who come to free them. He dreams of returning back to Tatooine and freeing the slaves. Shmi began to sing the songs she picked up from the Old Mother at night, letting her heart be just a little lighter when she looked at her son. Anakin dreams of following the River to freedom. Every night without fail, he finds the River that lay above them and dreams of the paradise that awaits on the other side. He tells her off all the things that will happen, and Shmi does not have the heart to stop him. So as her boy’s eyes trace currents unseen, Shmi polishes and cleans, wrapping wires and stripping parts.

Shmi does not know how to hope for those things, she knows how to survive but her boy has never dreamed wrong before. And he always says _when I come back_ so she does what she can. She protects her Ani until the men come and take him away. She watches as he builds things with his hands and whispers tales of things that have not yet happened. 

***|~ Alorir’ika~|***

It is after, when her boy is no longer on Tatooine that brings her memories back. A hunter in metal armour comes from Jabba’s court. He’s deadly and a focused dangerous predator that stalked the halls. He brought with him a bounty that he threw in front of Jabba with a ruthlessness in him that Shmi has never seen before. She did not know it at the time, but the Hunter had spotted her and recognized her for who she is. The hunter had decided to let Jabba have his payment in return for a slave mechanic. 

Jabba refuses to sell her, until one day he doesn't. So Shmi is given to the Hunter in return for his caught bounty. It is later, after he has convinced Jabba that he wouldn’t take his credits but in fact a mechanic for his ship that he actually talks to her. 

His ship doesn’t need much, only a few calibrations. It would hardly take her a few hours to complete. But that is not the full reason he had whisked her from Jabba. He was a mandalorian and in the dead of the night on a slaver’s ship, he had silently made a promise. A promise to that kind beautiful woman that he had known and memorized. A promise to an unborn child that he will do his best to protect the two of them.

The Hunter reached up and took off his helmet, revealing kind liquid eyes that Shmi had forgotten. ( _His name was Jango and he was a mandalorian)._

“Jango?”

The woman whispered the name with all the reverence one holds for water on this planet. Shmi remembers as she throws herself into his hard metal covered chest. He asks her what happened to her child.

“He’s gone.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to~” he never quite finished what he was trying to convey.

“No, Jango. He’s not dead. The Jedi came and took him.” Shmi shook her head, scarred palm reaching up for his face. 

They talk then. Of things that had happened to each other. And Jango pulls out a blocky illegal device that he promises won’t hurt, but it may burn. Instead the man who had been in bondage with her, who loved her all those years ago and hadn’t forgotten Shmi Skywalker- freed her from her life as a slave. 

  
  


“Where- what do I do now?” Shmi asked him, sliding the shoulder of her tunic upwards once more. Her hands are anxious in her lap, twining around each other, looking for something to fix and steady themselves on.

“Whatever you please, Shmi. I won’t be your slave-master. I can take you anywhere you please.” A warm sturdy hand grasps her shoulder, feeling the wiry muscle underneath. “Plenty of people will pay you a decent wage for being a skilled mechanic.” Jango has carried her kindness and her soft words inside of him since they met. He carried them close to his heart in the days where death would have been a blessing. Through years of hardship and torture. It would only be fitting to somehow repay her for those things, if he was able. 

Shmi asks him how the device worked. And he told her, placing the square squat body in her hands with a warning. 

"You'll be put to death if you're caught, Shmi."

"I know." She turned her warm brown eyes upwards, smiling in the face of his concern. "But there are worse things than death, remember Jango." 

It is after curfew, in the dark of the night when Shmi returns to the slave quarters. It is later in the dark of the night when Shmi takes the small device to the Slave quarters.

She leaves the black square object with Busa, the eldest of the Slaves. Busa smiled, hands wrapping around the device, her eyes glowed as she looked at the younger. Busa is happy for them, a happiness that is tempered with her wisdom and age. Her words hold a deeper meaning as she told them before Shmi left. “I’ll meet you in the morning. Farewell, oh farewell.”

When it is over and Jango follows her back to the ship, he is quietly thoughtful beside the small wiry woman. 

Closing up the hatch, Shmi looks at this man who she had loved for years. When he asks her, "What now?"

She replies with a small grin that lights up the old ship hull. 'Now we go find the river and lead others there."

Jango and Shmi leave Tatooine, but it is not forever. Both of them know the cruelty of their slave masters. As they follow the River into the night, the two plan. They plan and refine and plan some more. And slowly but surely they eventually lead others to the River. They lead more and more of their people, taking them to a brand new home. 

A home that eventually has a small carbon copy of Jango. A boy who begins to understand that the _Jetii_ who had taken his older brother away were a different type of chains. A boy who would wear the face of a thousand soldiers in a new war that was coming.

They miss the return of Shmi's son to Tatooine.

  
  



End file.
